Economic advancement and Patois

THE EDITOR, Sir:

IT IS with considerable interest that I have been reading the debate unleashed by the Minister of Education in your newspaper on the discretionary use of patois in the teaching of English.

To my dismay, much of the considerable ink spilled on the topic completely misses some essential points. Allow me to elaborate.

After a distinguished career at the highest levels of international finance, I spent two years as head of the English department at one of St Elizabeth's finest private schools (St Vincent Strambi in Bull Savannah). My professional career had made me acutely aware of what is required of young people to compete, and succeed, in a global economy.

Imagine my shock when I soon realised that innumerable young Jamaicans have no idea how to express themselves in decent English, even at the most elementary level. As a result, here is a young generation whose intellectual development is stunted, economic chances ruined, and most avenues of personal betterment cut off by the callous disregard of its so-called leaders.

The whole debate reminds me of the uproar that erupted some years ago over the Oakland (California) School Board's suggestion to introduce ebonics and do away with boring, irrelevant English. Mr. Whiteman would do well to remember that this particular attempt at educational dumbing-down ended in a landslide of derision and shame for the Oakland Board. In fact, most members of that board have since reverted to shrimp-fishing and tomato-harvesting.

In the meantime, whole chattering mobs of Kingston intellectuals are tripping over themselves, positively drooling with sentimentality, in heartbreaking declarations of love to the colourful patois of country folk all over Jamaica. Never mind that those same people wouldn't want to be found dead within 30 feet of a patois-speaking countryman. Is patois endearingly colourful? Of course, and so are the doodlings of my two-year old niece.

That doesn't mean the local academy of arts will any time soon introduce my niece's drawings as an educational tool to illuminate the works of Rubens or Rembrandt. What I will always remember from my teaching years in Jamaica is the universal contempt in which my students held their government in Kingston.

In a recent letter to the paper, Dr. Val Chambers of Mandeville described Jamaica as a society isolated from civilisation. The truth is much harsher: Jamaica is fast slipping into irrelevance and terminal backwardness. I cherish the finest and warmest memories of my ex-students in Bull Savannah.

At the same time, it breaks my heart to know that they are being brutally and irreparably screwed over by a government of intellectual midgets and moral cripples.

I am etc.,

LUC CORIJN

luc.corijn@home.com

Richmond,

British Columbia

Canada

Via Go-Jamaica

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